Age verification systems on adult websites can be bypassed in seconds

‘Ethical hackers’ put the new checks to the test 

Since the Online Safety Act 2023 came into effect on Friday (25 July), all social media sites or webpages that showcase 18-plus content— like pornography — are now legally obliged to ensure that only those aged-over-18 can access their pages.  

Sites who ignore the rule, risk having to pay fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their global revenue. 

The law stipulates that each site must make use of "highly effective age verification" to stop children from potentially bypassing the checks and accessing harmful content. 

These checks are done via either open banking, photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile-network operator age checks, or digital ID services to mandate site access.

The effectiveness of these checks have been called into question by Sky News however, after two hackers they spoke to managed to bypass security measures on multiple sites without once verifying their ages.

Hackers Chris Kubecka and Paula Popovici made use of cheap and widely available technology. 

They said this was proof that the new age checks are not sufficient in protecting children from harmful material. 

A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology also told Sky News: "We expect these laws to be robustly implemented by tech companies. If they fail to do so, the regulator is ready to take severe enforcement action, including tough fines."

Another concern is that rather than stopping children from accessing explicit content, the new rules will push children towards more dangerous areas of the internet — like the dark web — in pursuit of pornography.

A data estimate showed that an extra 66,000 people tried to access the dark web on Friday morning.

Hacker Ms Kubecka said: "That is one of the concerns that I have because I don't want illegal or extreme content being normalised in our teens."